{"id":6985,"date":"2021-03-18T13:08:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T13:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=6985"},"modified":"2021-04-09T06:01:13","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T06:01:13","slug":"battle-against-pandemic-becomes-a-war-of-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chief-exec.com\/?p=6985","title":{"rendered":"Battle against pandemic becomes a war of words"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lies. Half-truths. \u2018Facts\u2019. Or just answers that offer political wriggle room?<\/span><\/h4>\n

\u201cWhen the truth offends, we lie and lie, until we can no longer remember it is ever there. But it is still there. Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

In these memorable lines from the series Chernobyl, the writer<\/a> captures how a mountain of small lies can have a seismic cumulative impact.<\/p>\n

Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader at the time thought so, recounting<\/a>: \u201cthe nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl \u2026, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so the political battle with \u2018truth\u2019 continues.<\/p>\n

The loose relationship the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, has with the truth has been the subject of much comment<\/a>. Small untruths are cast aside as expected and relatively harmless. Yet, when a whole government inherits this personal tendency, the cumulative effect cannot be ignored.<\/p>\n

This week the European Union and the United Kingdom locked horns in their increasingly fractious post-Brexit wrangling on the subject of access to Covid vaccines.<\/p>\n

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More than nine million people in the UK have been inoculated using a European-sourced vaccine, whereas no European residents have received the same benefit from a UK source.<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n

UK accusations of \u201cvaccine nationalism\u201d by the EU provoked Charles Michel, the European Council president, to accuse the UK of blocking exports of the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine made in the UK, despite the country receiving more than nine million vaccine doses from Europe. It was an accusation vigorously denied by the UK government.<\/p>\n

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab wrote a letter<\/a> to Mr Michel saying the \u201cfalse claim has been repeated at various levels within the EU and the Commission\u201d.<\/p>\n

His letter is understood by the BBC to say: \u201cThe UK government has not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine or vaccine components\u201d.<\/p>\n

Charles Michel later stepped back from his earlier accusation but left the following caveat: there are \u201cdifferent ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines\/medicines\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Glad if the UK reaction leads to more transparency & increased exports, to EU and third countries.<\/p>\n

Different ways of imposing bans or restrictions on vaccines\/medicines. <\/p>\n

EU is providing vaccines for its citizens and rest of the world.<\/p>\n

No one is safe until everyone is safe.<\/p>\n

— Charles Michel (@eucopresident) March 9, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n